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Electric bills increasing

By: Staff Writer

9/02/2010 1:52 PM | Comments: 19

WINNIPEG — Power rates will go up nearly three percent in April, a stop-gap measure while Manitoba Hydro's regulators prepare for a mega-hearing on Hydro's risk.

The Public Utilities Board ruled Tuesday that rates will go up 2.9 per cent starting April 1, which will cost homeowners anywhere between a 50 cents to $5 extra a month, depending on electricity use.

The PUB also laid out how it will deal with a series of risk reports — including ones authored by an anonymous whistleblower who suggested Hydro might be facing blackouts and severe financial problems. The PUB will be facing wrangling over what reports are public and what elements Hydro is allowed to keep secret to protect its competitive interests. And it said it planned to ask the whistleblower to allow her reports to be made public.

Starting June 1, the PUB will host a huge hearing on Hydro's long-term rates, the first chapter of which will cover Hydro's risks — everything from drought to export prices.

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19 Commentscomment icon

@ SoberThought
The only reason we have cheap power is because Manitoba was blessed with a huge, large volume water shed. No extraction and transportation of coal or natural gas required. That and we have paid off the majority of our dams infrastructure built in times past.

And actually, BC Hydro is cheaper for some retail segments, but that's beside the point. And your argument gets leakier as you realize that our demand has slowly caught up with supply. This means we will be on the hook to pay for dam expensive construction, which means increased rates. We are in for some huge rate increases in coming years, dams are expensive to build. Not to mention the envirohippies are predicting wide spread droughts in coming years, which means we become an importer of electricity. And we get caught with our pants down, relying on our lone wind farm, lone natural gas plant, and lone coal plant to power ALL of Manitoba.
Now where is MB Hydro when they should be taking the lead to diversify our power supply supplies and look out for our best interests?? Well, let's see the whistle blower reports.

I'll try and make this explanation more clear. We have enough electricity at the end of the day to supply all Manitobans then we sell the extra to Americans. What ever we get from those sales are used to subsidize our electricity bills in Manitoba, which is a bonus because we weren't using it anyways. The problem has been that since the economy slowed down in the States there is less energy being used therefore I would assume we'd be either selling less or just selling it at a lower price then before. Which then means we don't get as much from the americans as we did pre-recession so our rates are not subsidize as much. These are facts.

Further more since people don't appear to want to do any research and just complain without any facts:
-average american household pays 11.26 cents per kWh....that means almost double our current 6.25
-Check out this link to see you have one of the lowest rates in Canada http://www.hydro.mb.ca/regulatory_affairs/energy_rates/electricity/utility_rate_comp.shtml

How is a building stealing from the poor and giving to the rich???

Soberthought: You don't have a clue. Hydro's 300million dollar glass tower is the biggest waste of province's money and they are harvesting OUR public money to fund it. ((Saving on lease space.. give me a break)) - More like take from the poor to feed the rich. I heard Brennan's marble floors cost 2million dollars. Greed..greed.. and don't think our rates are low. Our residential rates are HIGHER than what Hydro subsidizes its American parties. And so our rates have to go up, because American rates went down. That's NDP mismanagement for you..

Haha, honestly I don't get some people don't understand. WE HAVE THE LOWEST or NEAR TO LOWEST RATES IN NORTH AMERICA (fluctuates daily in some places). That is a fact. You can get mad at me for saying it but its the truth. Instead of getting upset go online and do research like I did or ask your family, in Saskatchewan or Alberta what they pay per kWh. If you want to pay less then look up powersmart programs on Hydro's website.

I don't agree with the proposed West side placement of the hydro line but thats just my opinion.

More facts: Its not illegal to have a monopoly. Plus with the natural gas you can choose to buy from someone else other than hydro. I just don't understand why you would though seeing as by law Hydro has to BY LAW sell natural gas at the same price it bought it. Kind of hard to beat buying something at cost isn't it.

Any more questions that I can answer with facts rather than opinions?

avatar

This can only be the work of the NDP.They raid the coffers of Hydro,which in turn hyrdo tells the rate payers it's drought conditions and then go to the Utility Board and ask for some more money. I smell a rat somewhere. Time to turn up my heat and use my share of electricity before it goes up again.

The fundamental problems of Crown corporations are finally starting to surface, with Hydro and MPI (Peak of the Market gets dishonorable mention, so does MLCC). The biggest problem is that their management has far to wide of berth to act unaccountably. The only people who have the power to crack down on them is the NDP government. Do you really expect a group of ex-union members to fire somebody? Nope, they never will. So that means the heads of crown corporations can do whatever they want, however they want. You and I are powerless to do anything about it. Sure, you can pack up your cardboard placards and walk the sidewalks outside Citi Place or the Hydro building. Sure you can write some angry letters. But you have NO real recourse, bend-over whether you like it or not. Let the union cronies keep on enjoying their death grips over the people of this province.
When a private company does bad business, shares get sold, share value goes down, and investors get grumpy. Grumpy investors have no problem replacing a CEO. When there is healthy competition and you the customer is dissatisfied or over charged, you find another supplier. This is the basics of a free market economy, a concept that has worked since the beginning of history, and only manages to fail when governments meddle with it. I have yet to hear a VALID argument explaining how healthy competition is ever a bad thing, come on NDP supporters you vote for government monopolies every time, WE'RE WAITING.

Soberthought - Sounds like you work for Hydro.

I as well would LOVE to hear why flushing milllions and millions of tax payers dollars down the toilet to position a utility to be future ready building a transmission line down the west side of the lake is a good idea. And don't give me any crap about it being hydro's money. If hydro has that much cash sitting around, then we should be seeing a rate CUT, not another gouge from the Manitoba Energy Monopoly. Which brings up another question - If it's illegal to have a monopoly on supply and service in the utility sector, why does the Provincial Gov't have 2? Gas and electric monopoly, and we still get hosed on something we supposedly own. Thank you NDP.

To SoberThought:
While you're at it,you can enlighten us on how running a transmission line down the West side of Lake Winnipeg will save Manitobans millions.
Oh,just facts please; no unfounded opinions.

I was expecting the always present propaganda mantra("but we will still have the lowest rates in the country") to appear in the actual article as it always does.
Imagine my surprise when I didn't find it. But wait, much to my delight it was there, however it had to be supplied by a couple of brainwashed posters here.
Thank you people for doing Hydro's work for them.

Well,I guess I can just sleep with another blanket.I keep my baseboards down pretty low already to save on energy.It gets cold at night but I sleep with a couple of layers on and socks.You`d be suprised how much money you can save.

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